Maryland Shakespeare Festival did their Bare Bard Experiment of The Winters Tale over the weekend (10 bucks man! how could you miss it). For some reason, of the 12 separate Shakespeare plays I’ve seen over the past 3 years, this one has always stuck with me, and become one of my favorites. I’ve seen it Live twice, read the text, watched the BBC DVD and listened to the Archangel Audio dramatization, so I do at least have a basic understanding of the plot.

But none of those compared to what I saw this weekend. I saw a gut wrenching version of Leontes played by Andrew Borthwick Leslie. When he fell to the floor in a moment of self-realization, and laments his actions to Paulina, I was transfixed. Ya know how you go to 5 football games, waiting to see that perfect pass… Well at that moment he threw a touchdown.

The rest of the play was really very good with Kudos’s to all the cast, the tragedy was very tragic, and the comedy was very… well comic. The humor played out exceptionally well with the audience laughing and applauding at various intervals. The actor/audience talk back was once again interesting, and I was glad I hung around.